Life and Lyme

Muddling Through Life with Lyme Disease

I hate it when people don\’t believe what I say. When I say something I don\’t fuck around with double meanings or hidden codes. Sometimes I do tell people what they\’d like to hear, especially about my health (sure,I feel good right now)  or how they look or feel. This rant pertains to other things. If I say something doesn\’t bother me, IT DOESN\’T BOTHER ME. Trust me, you\’ll know if it does.

The more puzzling question is why people distrust what I say in the first place. There might be some form of communication they learned at an early age that I didn\’t get. At any rate, it drives me crazy, both with Lyme and with life. It\’s also exhausting to feel that I have to re-explain once again, that yes, this is how I feel.

This spills over into holidays, mainly because of our obsessive mania that everybody \”have a good holiday\” as if there is a one-size-fits-all formula for that. All holidays are loaded with baggage, but for most of us, none more than Christmas. Over the years, I\’ve dropped off celebrating most other holidays. Easter? I\’m atheist, so that one was easy to let go. July fourth? Other than deviled eggs, not much I miss one way or the other.. If we had children around, things might be different, but that\’s a whole other blog topic. Katie\’s theory is that if you don\’t have happy Christmas memories during your childhood and teens, you spend the rest of your life chasing the dream. She may be onto something here.

When I was little, holidays were celebrated, but not excessively so. I could always count on getting a few things that I really wanted. We had cookies, and a Christmas dinner, but nothing over the top. I remember feeling happy and loved. As the person in charge of holidays while Katie was growing up, I tried to to the same. I must have done that well, because Katie has mostly happy memories about Christmas, and for that matter, all holidays.

Because I was the one in charge of holidays, I got to do what I wanted. That may be the key to having good ones. I took great pleasure in cleaning the house and setting up the decorations. Aside from arguments about lights and the excruciating process of watching the ex pick out a tree (we solved that one by going artificial), I was free to pick and choose the rituals I enjoyed (midnight mass? No thanks. Waiting until after breakfast to open presents? Nope.) I continued lots of traditions long past their childhood origins and my divorce simply because I liked them. Katie enjoyed the fruits of my labor, but part of that was I didn\’t make her do them.

The onset of Lyme brought about the biggest changes in my celebrations since my twenties, when I moved out and set up my own household. Fortunately for me, those years dovetailed with years that Katie worked every holiday. Kennels never shut down. Dogs need to be fed, medicines given, and kennels cleaned. Katie volunteered to work those days and we adjusted to my being ill and her working holidays. The first year after I was diagnosed, I spent Thanksgiving in my pajamas and robe, too sick to go anywhere, cook, or even care. I made Thanksgiving dinner a week after Thanksgiving, and it tasted exactly the same as if I had made it on Thanksgiving Day.

That year, we had Christmas two days before. I managed to get up the Christmas tree and wreath, but it certainly wasn\’t a typical Christmas. Once again, the presents brought as much joy as if we had opened them Christmas mornings. Not having up all the decorations didn\’t diminish the joy of seeing the Christmas tree lights and the wreath on the door through the season. It was a revelation. After that, we just rolled with it. A few years there were very few presents, just because it was too much for me to shop and wrap,. Instead of being sad or depressed, I found I liked the freedom. To be able to watch movies in my jammies and not worry about pleasing anyone but me was exactly what I needed when I was so sick.

Now I can enjoy Christmas however it turns out. I am very fortunate to have a family that wholeheartedly endorses this. Dad doesn\’t care for any holidays, including his birthday. He suffers through them to make the people around him happy. There is a place for this, just as there is a place for respecting his wishes. If someone close to me really loved celebrating July Fourth, I\’d make potato salad, deviled eggs, and ham and enjoy doing so.  I\’d go see fireworks and get a thrill out of seeing them. On Halloween, I\’d happily decorate the porch and hand out candy. I wouldn\’t go to church for Easter or any holiday, but you get my drift.

Since Lyme, I\’ve come to embrace my non-holidays. I feel positively smug when I hear how exhausted people are from endless rounds of shopping, parties, and family obligations. If you love doing everything and everybody\’s happy in your world around the holidays, good on you. Enjoy them and recognize that there are lots of people who are perfectly happy NOT doing all those things. Katie, Dad and I give each other things all year long. We go out to eat when we feel like it, and I\’ll cook a nice dinner whenever I want to.  And please, when someone (ME!) tells you something doesn\’t bother them, try to believe them.

 

 

 

 


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